The fans who packed into the Hampden Academy gymnasium for Saturday’s Penobscot Valley Conference cheerleading championships may have noticed some differences in scoring and the way the competition was run.

Some of those changes will be in effect for this Saturday’s Big East Conference competition.

For the first time this year, Classes A and B were split into two PVC competitions with awards to the top two Class A teams (Brewer and Bangor, respectively) and top two Class B teams (John Bapst of Bangor and Hermon).

The goal of splitting up the classes was to give Class B teams a chance to win their own hardware. Class B teams usually fall victim to the Class A squads, although Bapst placed second two years ago.

With five Class A teams and nine Class B teams, two competitions seemed feasible.

“It’s something we’ve talked about in the past,” said longtime Brewer coach Kristie Reed, who serves as the liaison between the state’s coaches and the Maine Principals’ Association. “With such a big group of Bs, we all voted on it and that’s how it was changed.

Next week’s Big East competitions will be held at separate times at Hermon High School. That should alleviate some of the crowding that happened Saturday at Hampden, when about 1,500 fans squeezed into the gym, with some sitting on the floor.

The Class A meet will be at noon, after which the Hermon gym will be cleared and the Class B competition will take place. There will be a junior varsity competition at 10 a.m.

In another change, each team performed its routine twice and the two scores were averaged to determine placing. In previous years each team performed once and only the top half of the teams in the field were called back.

The change gives all teams a chance to perform a few times before the regional competitions.

“For a lot of teams that come here and don’t ever get to go twice, some teams will go into regionals where it really counts [having performed] four times. Other teams, twice,” Reed said. “We wanted to level the playing field and everyone can get out there and do it twice. Yes, it makes for a longer competition, but we don’t have any other way that will work better at this point.”

Raiders win DAC title

Eastern Maine Class C cheerleading powerhouse Washington Academy of East Machias kicked off its season with a win at the Downeast Athletic Conference championships Saturday at Calais High.

The Raiders scored a 111.6 to pick up their seventh conference title. Calais was second with a 98.1, followed by Machias (91.0) and Narraguagus of Harrington (86.3).

The four teams performed two rounds but only the second-round scores were used to determine placing.

WA had a 128.8 in the first round. The Raiders had a 126.6 in the second round but 15 points worth of deductions knocked them down to a 111.6.

The Raiders team members are Brittany Bigger, Caylin Beaudoin, Letitia Bellows, Marcedas Hatt, Shawn Leighton, Katrina McCormick, Ashley Noyes, Gabrielle Rushforth, Arianna Sanborn, Saxon Schmauderer, Colin Wagner, Dylan Wright and alternates Megan McPherson, Caissie Nevala and Katherine Zeader.

Another team member, main base Rebekah Cox, became ill before the competition. The Raiders had 10 minutes to revamp their routine.

“They put it all together,” 12-year coach Lauree Schoppee said. “I was so proud of them.”